I hate having to write reviews/posts that knocks on a restaurant, especially when it’s my first post of 2011, but sometimes it is just necessary to do.

Straight to the point – I will never eat at YamaSho again. This Japanese restaurant/karaoke place is located in San Francisco near the Civic Center/Tenderloin area. Our party of 14 people came here last night for my friend’s birthday dinner and stayed for karaoke afterward.

The service was absolutely terrible. Although the people working there were super nice, we waited probably more than an hour for our food. Since our reservation was at 8:30, we ordered maybe a little after 9pm so we didn’t even get to eat until after 10pm. To add to that, not our whole party even ordered food and the restaurant wasn’t super busy it seemed. Worst yet, after over an hour of waiting for our food, they still forgot some of our orders! And they knew their service was bad too because they gave us complimentary edemame beans, a pitcher of beer, and a hot sake on the house. It was very disappointing.

My friend and I shared a sushi roll and a combination dinner of fried oysters and beef teriyaki. First of all, for a $20.99 combination plate I expected more food, and better food too. The only good thing was they gave us an extra bowl of salad and rice with the combo since we were sharing.

And when I say that’s the only good thing, I really mean it. After we were done with dinner and went downstairs to our karaoke room, I was talking to my friend and we both realized that the oysters/food in general weren’t sitting well in our stomachs. When I mentioned this to her, she looked at me and said, “I feel the same way! I thought it was just me.” Great, so we waited days for our food AND you’re going to give me stomach problems too? At that point of the night though it just felt a little funny and I tried not to think about it.

The fun didn’t really start until I was home trying to sleep. It was 4am and as I laid in bed, I got this awful cramping in my stomach. I’ve had food poisoning/stomach flu before, and this reminded me of it 100%. After tossing and turning for a while, I ended up throwing up twice and having to take Imodium to ease the stomach pains.

So just to tally up – YamaSho owning me: 2, Derek: 0. You win YamaSho and I will never come back again.